When his sister decided she wanted to hunt again, Chance Weldon offered his best advice and it proved correct for her with the biggest one on the farm.
On Nov. 7, 2015, I guided my younger sister, Summer, on a hunt at our family’s farm, where she killed one of the largest bucks we have ever seen on the property. The buck, a massive 9-point she had previously and quite appropriately dubbed Goliath, had long eluded me. I have saved trail camera pictures of him from as far back as mid-2014, and possibly even further back. However, Summer had not hunted in years.
Although she had a young buck to her credit from her first season, after several seasons of seeing few deer when she had time to hunt, she quit going altogether. After seeing my trail camera pictures of Goliath, as well as some of the other bucks that frequented our farm, Summer decided she wanted to start hunting again.
I said if she wanted the absolute best chance of taking one of the bucks, she needed to hunt during our muzzleloader season. That tends to coincide with the rut. When the opening day came, Goliath stepped out into the field and my sister dropped him at 221 yards with dad’s muzzleloader. It was such a bonding moment for the two of us, especially considering how long it had been since we last hunted together.
And Then, Chance Scores!
In 2012, I started handgun hunting. This was the deer hunting method I was most eager to get into, having wanted to try it since I first took the hunter safety course.
Unfortunately, I went three seasons without killing any game animal with my revolver. I admit to not being that good of a shot with a revolver, so I limited my range to about 50 yards. That was the absolute farthest I was comfortable shooting. Unfortunately, deer would always end up just outside of that range.
In 2015, I decided to build a Thompson Center Encore handgun to try out. I could shoot it accurately at much further distances than with the revolver. On Nov. 21, 2015, the opening day of our gun season, I finally managed to fulfill a long held dream and kill my first deer with a handgun: a 4 1/2 year old 7-point.
